It is a thousand-year-old tradition of Bengalis to satisfy their satisfaction by eating all kinds of pies and sweets made with jaggery in rural villages when winter comes. With fresh rice flour and sugarcane molasses, the women of rural areas make various types of pies. The whole winter season is full of passion for pie making.
To entertain guests at home or to satisfy the satisfaction of family members, it is difficult to match pie made of jaggery. Jaggery is one of the ingredients for making pie. However, adulterated jaggery is sold now in different markets of Sundarganj Upazila of Gaibandha. While buying jaggery, consumers are confused about which is real and which is fake. Weight manipulation is going on and there is fear of harming the health of consumers.
It can be seen in municipality Bazar and Mirganj Bazar, simple consumers are buying jaggery for making cakes or eating with crackers and puffed rice. Jaggery traders hand over a handful of jaggery to consumers and ask for 90 taka. If someone wants real molasses, they show another handful and say that it costs one hundred Tk. Why more or less at the same molasses price- When asked by the consumers, the shopkeepers say that the price also goes up or down depending on the good or bad. As jaggery is usually sold by the handful, consumers do not even feel the need to check the weight. Jaggery traders are cheating by capitalizing on such simple faith of consumers. They resorted to fraud by giving less weight.
According to the shopkeepers, each handful is sold at a weight of sixty. How much in kg they say, 750 grams. The consumer's weight was found to be 597 grams. The issue of weight manipulation emerged when consumers selectively measured their wrists with digital measuring devices.
It can be seen that the weight of each handful of jaggery is different. Some are 577 grams, some are 590 grams, and some are 599 grams. When the consumer asked why it was underweight, the shopkeeper found another handful, which weighed 734 grams. In this manipulation of traders' weights, consumers are being cheated of 100 to 150 grams of jaggery while selling each handful of jaggery. The market price of which is around 14-21 Tk.
A consumer named Nitai Chandra Saha said, 'The taste and smell of the jaggery we used to eat is still lingering in our mouth. But adulterated molasses has no taste, no smell.'
When asked about adulteration and low weight of molasses, the shopkeeper showed the moneylender who made molasses in the market. Mahajan Natku Chandra from Mirzapur of Rangpur's Mithapukur upazila, chatted with Manju Mia of the same area. He said, 'Different grocers of Sundarganj, including Mirganj, order handfuls of molasses of 100 to 150 grams of low weight to buy at a low price and sell at a high price. We make it lightweight. To cover up one's misdeeds, adulterated jaggery prepared by mixing jaggery with sugar or artificial sugar is supplied by others in various markets and road junction shops.'
In this regard, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) Rangpur region senior examiner Rashedul Islam said, "Mixing artificial colors in jaggery is definitely harmful to health."
Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) Rangpur Region Deputy Director Mofiz Uddin Ahmad said, 'Jaggery should not be sold by 60 kg weight. Our campaign against weight manipulation and adulteration continues. Gaibandha will also be raided soon.’